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The CREW Community Center in Mount Jackson, which is being developed within the old Triplett school building, won’t likely be finished until late spring to early summer 2025, but the space is already abuzz with activity.

The building has been used for mental health conferences, winter baseball camps and Boy Scout meetings. It is also already the planned home of Valley Health’s first community garden in the Shenandoah Valley.

It’s just the beginning of numerous plans coming to fruition for the burgeoning community space.

Community Resources for Education and Wellness, or CREW, was established earlier this year as a 501©(3) charity by David Ferguson and Randy Doyle. The organization aims to partner with public and private organizations to advance education and wellness in Shenandoah County.

The local nonprofit has been laser-focused on transforming the old Triplett School facility into a community center and performing arts venue.

Along with classroom upgrades, planned renovations include accessibility upgrades, a new heating and cooling system, and a conversion of the cafeteria’s current commercial kitchen to a more conventional space the public can safely use.

Central to the vision is the renovation of the large gymnasium and stage in the building. Such an overhaul would include sound-dampening infrastructure to quiet the gym’s echoes, audio/video electronics, removable theater seating and mats to cover the wooden basketball court surface.

In late January, the Shenandoah Community Foundation received a $50,000 grant for the renovation of the gymnasium. Kim Cassford, executive director, said construction was expected to start this week.

According to Jon Bennett, president of CREW, architectural drawings from Huber Architects have been approved and presented to the CREW board.

“Based on these drawings, we are in the process of acquiring the necessary bids for completing the buildout. We are also requesting updated bids from the third-party vendors to appropriately outfit the spaces involved in that part of the project,” Bennett said. “These revised bids will now be based on the final accepted design plans to address things like acoustics, sound systems, seating, and curtains.”

But while the facility is being prepared for renewal and transformation, it is already being put to good use.

This winter, the first CREW youth winter baseball camp was held.

“The camps served ages 7 to 17, and they were 100% full. CREW offered and enrolled a few on full scholarship and provided the baseball mitts as needed,” Cassford said. “The kid-to-coach ratio was 4-1, which offered high-quality instruction teaching sportsmanship and techniques.”

It’s one of many similar efforts CREW seeks to form within the center. Cassford said the group has applied for the Nina M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant to provide an after-school program, summer camp and a four-week free summer camp for middle-school-aged free for middle schoolers across Shenandoah County.

“All will be led by professionals with a 1-to-10 teacher-to-student ratio,” Cassford said. “The application included letters of support from various organizations throughout Shenandoah County. We will know August or September of this year and are hopeful.”

The center is also developing and nurturing further community collaborations focused on various local needs. CREW recently welcomed Northwest Community Services into the space for a free community mental health and first aid class, which 30 community members attended.

“Mental Health First Aid teaches how to recognize signs and symptoms that might indicate an individual is developing a mental health challenge or experiencing a mental health crisis, how to better support the individual and how to help link them to appropriate mental health professionals,” said Corialise Pence, communications specialist for Northwest Community Services.

Cassford said the space hopes to step deeper into providing similar programs and services. CREW will collaborate with Page Alliance Community Action (PACA) and Shenandoah Family Youth Initiative to provide the Pathways to Hope program, which engages youth ages 7-17 who have been impacted by domestic and sexual violence. CREW hopes to launch the program as early as next January.

Finally, CREW is working with the four international Rotary clubs in the Shenandoah Valley to create a learning lab within the facility.

“A matching Rotary District Grant hardware of the learning lab has been procured in consultation with one of the Valley’s IT subject matter experts who has generously donated his time to ensure that when the lab is functional, it will best serve the needs of those across the entire age spectrum — young and seniors alike,” said Ros Poplar, Rotarian and CREW board member.

A community garden in collaboration with Valley Health is coming even more quickly. Cassford hopes the garden will be planted by June and ready for a fall harvest. The Shenandoah Memorial Hospital Foundation awarded CREW $5,000 to form the 40-by-60-foot garden.

“The SMH (Shenandoah Memorial Hospital) Foundation raises funds to support SMH in improving the community’s health. One of those efforts includes ensuring fresh, quality food is available to support the nutritional needs of our patients,” the foundation’s Executive Director Jenny Grooms said. “Modeling a similar effort that is grant funded in Page County, effective community gardens are a model partnership between hospitals and the community in supporting food security and promoting healthy eating habits.”

Erica Logsdon, media relations coordinator for Valley Health, said similar gardens provide up to 3,000 pounds of produce annually. She said the produce is available to everyone, but food-insecure populations benefit the most.

Cassford said the multiple collaborations already developed showcase the need for the facility.

“The early engagement with the community and community organizations has demonstrated a high demand for the space and a need for diversified programming to reach all ages with various considerations,” Cassford said.